The main opposition PNCR is urging Minister of Education Shaik Baksh and the PPP/C administration to let justice prevail by ensuring the appointment of Genevieve Whyte-Nedd as Chief Education Officer (CEO).

PNCR shadow education minister Amna Ally yesterday told reporters that the failure to appoint Whyte-Nedd to the substantive post was indefensible, suggesting a political motive. “What the PPP/C has done is to discriminate against her and has engineered matters in such a way that Ms Whyte-Nedd is likely to retire next year at her current substantive position and therefore stands to lose in financial terms,” Ally said, adding, “This is an unhealthy development, which is likely to have a chilling effect on the genuine professionals in the Ministry of Education and elsewhere in the Public Service.”

On Thursday, protestors led by the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) picketed the office of Education Minister Shaik Baksh, calling for the confirmation of Whyte-Nedd. Whyte-Nedd has been acting in the post of CEO since 2005, having acted in the post on three occasions between 2000 and 2004. Ally noted that although Whyte-Nedd formally applied for the position when it became vacant, despite the intervention of the Guyana Public Service Union and the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU), she has been unable to secure substantive appointment.  “There is no good reason why Ms. Whyte-Nedd, the current acting [CEO], should not have been appointed to the substantive position a long time ago,” Ally said, adding, “This is clearly a political matter.”

She said the reason offered by the Minister Baksh for failure to appoint Whyte-Nedd- that it is up to the Public Service Commission to make the appointment-is spurious. If the PPP/C administration wanted the appointment, Ally said, it would have been done. “The PNCR is sure that had Ms Whyte-Nedd not been a highly professional and competent public servant, capable of exercising independent judgment, and was rather a pliant individual prepared to do the political bidding of the PPP/C administration, she would have been appointed the Chief Education Officer a long time ago, instead of being forced to languish in the professional wilderness for more than four years,” Ally added, while urging the administration to act to bring “an honourable end” to the issue and reassure the professionals in the ministry that there is still space for them to act as guardians of the country’s education system.